Looking For Signs
by FeathersMcStrange
Summary: Matryoshka Part 2 spoilers. G Callen has wondered what his name is his entire life. Now he knows, but the name feels wrong. It doesn't feel like his, and nothing he does can seem to make it feel like anything more than the name of a stranger. (Mainly G-focused with appearances by Sam and, to a lesser degree, Hetty.)
Wow so. Here it is then, name feelings: the redux, a fic that's honestly been about four years in the working, at least emotionally. Now we know what his name is. And I am very afraid of what this show is going to try and pull with that, that they might try and be like 'hey look we gave him a Real NameTM clearly that means he's a real whole person now without issues or trauma' which, no.

Anyway. Please let me know what you think. This is pretty personal, and your words mean a lot to me.

* * *

 _Back then I used to wander_

 _I was always out looking for signs_

 _But they were never there_

 _So I'd pull them from the air_

 _We all believed in something_

 _And like you I just can't say why_

 _It's just a whisper for our ears_

 _Or a bottle for our fears_

\- "Baptisms", Radical Face

The drive out of there feels like viewing the world through a snow globe. Everything seems vaguely distorted and far away through the car windows. Not quite real. The woods race by in a blur and there's a faint buzzing noise in G's ears. He hardly remembers the trip back to Los Angeles, as if it happened to someone else, or maybe in a dream.

Eventually, he finds himself in his house, trying to come to grips with the elephant in the room, the elephant with his name. For years, he's looked for this, barely clinging to the last vestiges of hope that he'd ever find it. It'd been such a long time since he'd let go of any real belief that was an answer he was actually going to get.

And now he has it. It's right there in his hands, he's brought it home with him across an ocean and into his living room where he now stands staring into a mirror, making himself say the words out loud.

"Grisha Aleksandrovich Nikolaev."

A hundred and one questions all arrive upon him at once. Will Hetty want to change his paperwork? Is he going to have to re-file all his documents, his deed to the house, his driver's license? Is the name G Callen even legally valid anymore? How many times is he going to have to say this name before introducing himself with it will feel like anything but a sad sham?

It's that last one that sticks, catches in the cogs of his mind and clings, sending a rush of doubt and nausea surging through him.

"Grisha Aleksandrovich Nikolaev," he says again, with more force this time, as if he can _make_ the words _mean something_ if he just says them strongly enough. Frustration curls his hands into tight fists at his sides and he says the name again. Says _his_ name again. It doesn't feel anymore like his the third time than it had the first.

This name he's chased after, searched for through so many years is right here, right staring him in the face, and it means _nothing_ to him.

A well of irritation and disappointment has begun to spread through G's chest, a sinister little voice hissing in his ear that there must really be something wrong with him; his normal human emotions must _really_ be skewed and unnatural if he can finally say his own name out loud for the first time and feel no connection to it at all. He angrily ignores that voice and says the name again, clears his throat and says, "Grisha Aleksandrovich Nikolaev."

It still feels empty.

How anticlimactic, G thinks, shoving away from the mirror and dropping like a stone onto his mattress. What a fucking disappointment. This was supposed to be the thing that finally made him feel like a person, the thing that gave him some answers, but all he is now is a man looking himself in the mirror and repeating a name that means no more to him than any other G name does. Grisha doesn't mean any more to him than Gabriel or George do. This was supposed to _mean_ something but these three words, that's all they are. They're just words. Eleven empty syllables that feel foreign and heavy in his mouth. Just some random name pulled out of a hat that was supposed to be his but tastes alien falling from his lips, that he's never heard in the voice of someone who loves him.

In a fit of annoyance at himself, he looks around until he finds a notebook and a pen, the Cyrillic coming easily after years of practice.

Гриша Александрович Николаев

Again, it's anticlimactic. It feels for all the world as if he's just written the name of a complete stranger, the name of someone he'll never know. He tries again, pen scratching desperate, repetitive marks of ink across paper.

Гриша Александрович Николаев

Гриша Александрович Николаев

Гриша Александрович Николаев

It doesn't feel any more familiar the second time, or the third, or the fourth. G writes until his hand hurts, until the page is covered in blocky script. No spark of recognition strikes him, no sudden clarity dawns.

"Dammit," he says in what is supposed to be a shout but comes out in a half-cracked voice of quiet defeat. This was supposed to change things. This was supposed to be his chance.

You'd think by now he of all people would be used to being let down.

There really isn't anything else for it, he figures, roughly grinding the heels of his hands against his eyes, as if he could physically make them stop burning if he only tried hard enough. He can't force this to work out the way he'd wanted it, _needed_ it to work out. No amount of wishing or hoping or writing repetitive three word prayers in Cyrillic will somehow convince these words to strike a note, any kind of note, inside him. Hell, by this point G would settle for hatred, would compromise at hearing the name and feeling revulsion. Even that would be preferable to the empty, blank non-recognition that is all he can drum up for it.

Nothing more he can do, G kicks the notebook down off the mattress, and lets the pen roll with an abandoned clatter across the floor. Sleep comes in fits and bursts of restless unconsciousness. He isn't expecting anything different.

Waking and seeing, first thing when he opens his eyes, the notebook, still open to the page he'd written on the night before, feels to G like some kind of taunt. A text from Sam saying he's out front, waiting to ferry them both to work, goes unnoticed as G continues to sit on the edge of the mattress, fully dressed, staring at that damn notebook. His phone lays, forgotten and set to silent beside him, and three unanswered, increasingly impatient text messages later, a knock sounds on the door. When he goes to open it, G is far from planning on saying the words that come tumbling out of his mouth before he can figure out how to stop them.

"Grisha Aleksandrovich Nikolaev."

"Excuse me?" asks Sam, who has gone pretty much instantly from mildly annoyed to concerned.

"Who's that?" Even as he asks the question, Sam gets a sinking feeling, similar to watching the countdown of a bomb timer, that he knows what the answer is going to be.

"It's me," answers G in a hoarse voice. "Or it's- It's supposed to be."

Sam steps inside. Suddenly, being on time for work seems relatively low on his priorities list.

(If he notices the notebook on the floor, the writing on it, he says nothing about it.)

"So you found it," says Sam, for lack of anything else to say.

"It found me," G answers bitterly, like the words taste bad to say.

"That's what Garrison told you. Before we left. He told you your name."

G doesn't say anything, doesn't seem to quite be able to, until Sam begins to speak again, and all of a sudden the question comes rushing out before he can stuff it back in.

"Wh-"

"Would you say it?"

"Would I what?"

"It's supposed to be my name but it doesn't _feel_ like mine. It was supposed to change things, I'm supposed to feel different now, but it just feels empty and wrong, like someone's put a desk down in front of me and told me it's a lamp. The name feels- It feels like it isn't mine, and I thought maybe if somebody _said it_ … I thought maybe it felt wrong because the only person I've heard say it is Garrison, and he's not- Nobody's called me it yet, at least nobody I know, nobody I-" G cuts himself off mid-rant, flinching like he almost said something he physically cannot say out loud. "Nobody I know. It's a stupid idea, I shouldn't have… Don't worry about it, it was a stupid idea."

"Hey, no," Sam says, quickly. He doesn't have to ask what it was. He remembers the name. "It's no problem." There's a few seconds of silence while G stares at the ground and Sam breathes deeply before speaking. "Grisha. Your name is Grisha Aleksandrovich Nikolaev."

A shudder goes through G's shoulders, and Sam takes it as a sign of how thrown off his game he is right now that he's letting any of these visual cues to his distress show at all. G sits down on the mattress and Sam follows suit, watching his partner carefully. He can see G's hands, twisting nervously in his lap for a few seconds, until suddenly they still.

"No it isn't." G's voice is calm and subdued. Sam doesn't respond, waiting for him to continue, which he does after a short pause. "That name, it's… It might be on my birth certificate but it isn't mine. It might be, someday. Maybe I'll eventually get used to it, maybe in a few days, a few weeks, a few years, it'll feel like _my_ name, but… It isn't, right now. It's a good name, it's a solid name, but that name belongs to somebody else." He sighs, folding his arms across his stomach and avoiding making eye contact with Sam. "Somebody I never got the chance to be."

"I'm sorry it wasn't what you were looking for," Sam says quietly. His hand squeezes his friend's shoulder, then moves to rest at the back of G's shoulder blade. He can feel it against his palm when G takes another heavy breath in, letting out slowly.

"So am I. But I'm glad I know." He leans against Sam's hand, trying to breathe in calm, even breaths, hoping it will make the pain in his sternum start to dim.

By the time they make it into the office, it's still there. All through the day, it's still there, and at the end, right as he's about to head home, the question he is asked when he is caught alone makes the ache flare up again, sharply.

"So, Mr. Callen. I hear you received some interesting information while overseas. I hear you've found your name."

It's anybody's guess how Hetty learned about what Garrison had told him, when the two of them were alone away from the others in the snowy Russian forest. Frankly, G doesn't want to think so hard about how she found out. He can add it to the extensive list of questions he has about Hetty that would be better left unanswered, information she shouldn't have that he'd rather not know how she got.

The last comment sticks in G's mind, and he's called back to things Hetty has said to him over time. The consistent way she never has referred to him by his first name, opting instead to call him _Mr. Callen_ , as the years they've known each other drag on. The almost pointed way Sam seems to say his name around her, like it's some kind of statement, some kind of defense. The answer, years ago, when G had finally _asked_ her why she wouldn't ever call him by his first name.

 _"It's not a name. It's a letter."_

That had wrenched at him in ways he'd never admit to, hearing this woman he respects so much, reveres almost, tell him the only thing he had just wasn't good enough for her; tell him the only name he had wasn't a name to her.

"Well?" Hetty asks, jolting him out of his thoughts. He looks over at her, feeling cold. "What is it then, Mr. Callen? What is your name?"

It's like all of the turmoil of the last days, the hundreds of times he thought, spoke, wrote that name that doesn't feel like his, the conversation with Sam, the warring sick feeling in him, Hetty's question, it's all led up to this. This moment, this realization, that suddenly, he knows the answer. For the first time in his life, he knows the answer. It hurts, and it seems like he's failed, and he still wants so badly for 'Grisha' to make him feel something, but no matter how hard this is going to be for him, no matter how long a struggle to feel at peace with any of it, this at least he knows the answer to.

"G," he says, looking Hetty dead in the eyes, daring her to challenge him, daring her to tell him again that it's a letter and not a name, to demand he tell her what she wants to know. "My name is G."

He turns and walks away then, before she has the chance to say anything, before he has the chance to lose his nerve. He walks past Sam on the way to the car, and doesn't see the proud smile on Sam's face, having heard all of it. That night sleep comes no easier, but the pain in his chest is lessened a bit, and the notebook from the night before still lies on the ground beside the mattress. Something is different, though. What is now showing is a fresh page, the frantic scribbles of Russian hidden away in the folds of paper, displaying now only two words, written in a calm hand.

 _G Callen_.


End file.
